By Mac Spain
The movies have brought us an endless amount of action heroes throughout the years, but in 2015 the action hero hall of fame (if there is even such a thing) opened its doors to Keanu Reeves and his performance of the fictional character…John Wick!
For the longest time it felt as though we’d seen all there is to see within the action film genre, Michael Bay destroying beloved children’s toy franchises such as Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was now the best we could hope for. But then 2015 came along and acted as something of a revolution for the genre. There was George Miller’s fantastic Mad Max Fury Road, which swapped CGI for practical effects and was all the better for it, and of course there was John Wick.
The thing that makes John Wick a cut above the rest would have to be the level of detail which goes into the fight choreography, it’s Kung-Fu with guns…Gun-Fu! What’s even more impressive is that Keanu Reeves actually does a lot of the stunts himself, which is always something to be praised.
I remember going into the first film with little to no expectations and yet in the end it turned out to be intense, thrilling and oh so much fun. John Wick Chapter 2 brings us plenty more of that exquisite fight choreography we’ve yearned for since the last one, while also trying to give us more of an insight to the criminal underworld that John Wick keeps getting himself pulled back into. It’s a nice idea to have the universe a little more fleshed out this time around, but the way it was approached didn’t really work for me. While I appreciate the John Wick films aren’t made to be taken too seriously, the ending just pushed things that bit too far and I was really made aware I was watching a movie.
This sequel has something like an extra twenty minutes on top of its predecessor and sadly it got to a point where I felt as though I could feel every second of it. I think a lot of that probably comes down to it not being as emotionally investing. Instead of John going on another bloodthirsty rampage for vengeance, he’s instead forced out of retirement and I just didn’t find myself rooting for him anywhere near as much on this particularly outing. It’s a stunt lover’s wet dream, but for me it fails to better or even as good as the original and for that reason John Wick
Chapter 2 gets a 6.8 from me.
